Robert Knox: Imperialism, International Law and the Politics of Hypocrisy

A report by Eric Loefflad on a talk by Dr Robert Knox (University of Liverpool) for the Kent Centre for Critical International Law (CeCIL)

The CeCIL annual lecture series continued in force this month with a riveting talk by Dr Robert Knox on ‘Imperialism, International Law and the Politics of Hypocrisy.’

While charges of hypocrisy are everywhere, consideration of the serious legal and political consequences of using this language are rare. In framing his analysis, Rob highlights the 2014 Ukraine crisis where the US’s condemnation of Russia’s presence in Crimea as illegal were met with charges that the US’s actions from Kosovo to Iraq gave them little standing to make these condemnations. Yet, while these charges of hypocrisy shifted back and forth, they also obscured the real question concerning the legality of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Moving forward from this basis of hypocrisy charges as fill-ins for substantive claims, Rob went on to explain how hypocrisy discourse emerged as a distinct product of modernity. For with the abandonment of a social order based on shared moral presumptions in favour of one based on an abstract ideal of individual autonomy, it became far more easy to criticise someone based on their internal inconsistency as opposed to their inconsistency with the broader society’s expectations. Furthermore, this very shift to a depersonalised capitalist order that made hypocrisy discourse possible also lead to an increased legalisation of everyday life for without a shared sense of communal obligation formalised law became the means of holding social bonds together. Here the gaps between ideal and reality that were now rendered legally actionable served to institutionalise hypocrisy discourse.

This dynamic also played out at the international level, for the mythical Westphalian ideal of sovereign statehood became something that provided states with tangible interests leading them to collectively pretend it was real through what Stephen Krasner deemed ‘Organised Hypocrisy.’ This hypocrisy discourse in international law was especially prevalent in the process of colonialism whereby imperial powers engaged in a sort of ‘systematised anti-hypocrisy.’ Here the claim was that non-Europeans could not understand reciprocity and therefore it would be hypocritical to apply the law to them in the same way as it would be applied to Europeans. This was especially true in the law of armed conflict whereby Europeans claimed that the fundamental principle of distinguishing combatants from civilians was inapplicable in wars against ‘savages.’

Furthermore, hypocrisy was also invoked by colonised peoples in two distinct ways which, according to Rob, had extremely different political implications. The first was the claim that ‘we too are civilised and therefore must be included’ while the second was directed to colonisers and asserted that their violent practices showed that they could never live up to their own ‘civilised’ standards. While the first claim affirmed the existing order by suggesting that it need only be reformed, the second claim embodied a radical rejection of the existing order and called for its replacement by something entirely new. In many ways, the failure of so many Third World projects can be viewed as a result of the triumph of the first concept of hypocrisy. Additionally, another type of hypocrisy discourse was present in the characterisations of international law by the Cold War superpowers where both the US and USSR sought extraordinary justifications to use force that would have been inapplicable to their rival. This survived the collapse of the USSR and virtually every US military operation since has been justified by a narrative of how the US is only country that can act in this capacity without being hypocritical.

In conclusion Rob left us with some thoughts as to what it might mean to politically engage with hypocrisy discourse given its historical variations. One suggestion is to ask whether things can be done in a consciously hypocritical way as a means of gaining political value? What that may entail is certainly up for debate and an additional question is posed concerning the way hypocrisy may work today in the face of an empowered far-right who certainly mean the terrifying things they say. While these are certainly broad considerations, one thing that Rob made abundantly clear is that simply dismissing something as ‘hypocritical’ is not enough and active engagement with the historical context and political consequences of this sort of discourse is a pressing imperative indeed.